Life in a box... overwhelmed

Today my daughter said to me “I’m sorry you feel so overwhelmed all the time and that the whole world is on your shoulders.”

Look dude, being a full time parent is a demanding job. Being in control is just an illusion. You are just a pawn in a very confusing and demanding chess game of life. Or as I like to call it: the Illuminati of the child realm.

I’ve always put myself into a position of giving more of myself than I think I really have to offer. I always have to be the one doing the majority of the work or a disproportionate amount of the duties. It’s naturally engrained in my personality and I have always felt like I need to be the one protecting, providing, or giving myself completely to other people.

Raising kids full time & all alone is no joke. You give 110% of yourself everyday and you’re already doing the job of 2 people. You can’t stop because if you do the whole train comes to a grinding halt. There’s no sick days, no vacation time, and no quitting because you just don’t feel like it anymore. It’s you, you’re all by yourself all the time. You see the world around you passing by and people living their lives and enjoying things or taking trips or having fun (and mentally you’re flipping the bird) and part of you envy’s that’s life. While you’re spending your morning barely getting out of the door in one piece, on time, and without losing your mind all while making sure everyone has everything and you didn’t forget anyone back at the house. Which might have happened to me once or twice... maybe 3.

Most days you are perpetually late to everything. You’re the last one to eat, last one to sleep, & the first one to get up. Your existing solely for those around you and 99% of the time you are sorely unappreciated. Other people think you’re nuts and no one understands why you are undeniably as bananas as they say.

You repeat yourself 17 times and by the 18th you’re so frustrated that your raising your voice and acting like a nutcase and then all sudden you feel bad because your kid is crying like you did something wrong and probably forgot what you were saying to begin with. You have undoubtedly called all your kids the wrong name at least once and referred to them as “whatever your name is.”

You live off coffee and some people end the day with 1 or 25 glasses of wine just to survive... I don’t drink so that leaves me screwed trying to figure out how to relax after a long day. You tend to role your eyes at other people’s issues who don’t have kids, and sure as hell don’t have much sympathy. You spend so much of your time getting your tribe taken care of that you constantly forget about what you need or wanted In the first place.

It’s a lot of no’s but mostly yes’s even when they started as no’s. When you order food you hardly ever order for self because you know your meal is whatever THEY didn’t eat. You never buy anything nice because that’s just stupid. When they are sick, you’re sick, but you can’t be sick because you gotta keep them from being sick. Most of your days are full of errands, appointments, drop offs, pick ups, friends houses, recitals, Girl Scouts, picking one kid up and dropping off the other just to go back and pick up the first one on the way to drop off the other one.

Breaking up fights, answering questions like “is it illegal to punch your sister in the face?” Or “but why?” Or “can I.” “How do I bury a body?”

yep.. they’ve asked...

You say “stop” a thousand times a day.

No one wants to date you.

But, no matter what you do or how many times you do it you’ll always be wrong or mean for the all the times you don’t do it and they tend to forget about the times you did do it because they are too focused on this time that you didn’t do it....

Confused yet? Yeah me too... I’m going to bed!